The Local Digital C-19 Challenge

Using data and digital tools to support COVID-19 recovery across local government

In 2020, DLUHC’s Local Digital Collaboration Unit made funding available for data and digital projects to help local authorities in England with their COVID-19 recovery and renewal efforts.

This government funding of up to £800,000 in total was aimed at supporting Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) projects that sought to combat the challenges faced by local government as a direct result of COVID-19.

The Challenge is now closed, but you can read about the successful projects in this blog post. You can also follow the progress of the funded projects and view the project outputs.

About the Challenge

We launched this fund to respond to the need for digital and data-enabled approaches to council operations post-COVID-19.

We invited applications in three thematic areas:

Data and reporting
Community engagement
Developing new working practices

Applications did not need to have a pure technology focus. Refer to the Local Digital Declaration to understand the principles we encourage in every project.

Key dates

1 July 2020

Applications open.

6 July 2020

Q&A session on the #mhclg-fund Slack channel in the LocalGovDigital workspace from 1 – 2pm

15 July 2020

Applications close at 5pm

21-22 July 2020

Panel Interviews

27 July 2020

Successful project applications announced

October 2020 - March 2021

As the projects completed, their outputs were published on the Local Digital website.